


salt with the memory of the bitter flood

by rybari



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, weird character study, weird self indulgent character study im so sorry antillika
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7226899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rybari/pseuds/rybari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Antillanka - "Hotakainen's life in Keuru, pre-mission, preferably"</p>
            </blockquote>





	salt with the memory of the bitter flood

Onni hugs Lalli and Tuuri close on the ferry. They’re quiet with shock, and he really should let them roam around or get a hot drink, but the thought of letting them go – of letting them _out of his sight_ – makes something inside of him break. His eyes keep leaking; it’s not crying anymore, just silent overflowing. It’s the only thing he can do right now.

==

Lalli hates Keuruu.

The spirits aren’t right. They’re all cramped from being in houses and trapped behind walls. They’re not as big or wild as the human spirits caught in the tree-branches of Saimaa. He misses them, even if they were scary. Grandma always laughed their anger down into light, something she could take hold of and guide to Tuonela. She’d not taught him the way (she’d laughed her big, roaring laugh when he did, and ruffled his hair. His way wasn’t loud, she’d said) and all he could do was avert his gaze, stepping delicately past old people who hadn’t realized they died yet.

He’d hate Keuruu if that was all it was, but he hates the living too. Onni keeps telling him to be patient, but he _hates_ it. Everyone trying to get him to talk. Tuuri pretending that the girls in her class didn’t call her infected. Even worse, he’s in a class that’s mainly older people, cos they don’t have anyone his age in Keuruu. He’s the youngest kid for miles, they tell him. Everyone figures that putting an eight-year-old in with the eleven-year-olds won’t harm him much.

Except: it rankles him. Tuuri’s only a year younger, but everyone treats him like he’s going to cry. The teacher gives him homework that’s different from the others, and he hates that too.

A bigger kid snatches the math paper away from him once. “Aw, poor baby,” he says. There’s something wrong with the way he says it, but Lalli doesn’t know what it is. “Is it hard trying to learn something as easy as multiplication?”

“Shut up.” he says. It’s not loud enough; it’s taken for a mutter.

“What was that?” the bully says.

“He says stop it,” says Tuuri, before she slams a book into the bully’s face.

They get into trouble. Tuuri broke a nose. Lalli kicked him so hard he bruised. But after that no one save the teacher harried the smallest Hotakainens, and for that, Lalli doesn’t mind. He stands up the next day in class and names every girl who talked mean at Tuuri, proclaiming every one of them to be ugly. And Tuuri smiles a little at him when he gets into trouble, too. It’s a shock when he realizes it’s the first time she’s smiled since Before.

==

Sometimes, when Tuuri is sick to death of staying in the shoebox apartment of theirs, and Onni is working long hours, and Lalli’s done the thing where he’s curled up under a bed, she grabs her coat and her muffler and Lalli’s hat and marches them both out into the world.

It’s usually pretty tame. She walks them both to the library, where the librarian peers over the desk at her, and she sits and reads stories while Lalli wanders the stacks. Sometimes he gets drawn to the spellbooks they keep on the second floor, but he’s warned to keep out of there. Sometimes he sits in the window seat and flicks his eyes across the landscape, tracking things Tuuri couldn’t see.

At times like these, Tuuri would read to her heart’s delight until she heard the _stomp stomp stomp_ of Onni and had to put her book to the side. Then Onni would let her take a few to borrow, and tell her he was worried _sick,_ she has to _tell him_ , if the librarian didn’t leave a message with the mage house he would have gone home to an empty house and worried and worried, why didn’t she just _stay put?_

It sat wrong with her. The charge to stay still stung her bones. She placed Lalli’s cap snugly over his ears and explored even more. The limit was when she peered over the wall with the sentries and saw Onni in the town square, staring up at her.

There was something like a heat wave, everything shimmering, and then she sat down with a bump on the cobblestones, Lalli right beside her. Onni looked torn between exploding into tears or anger.

“I can’t get infected from up there!” she said quickly. “And the scouts all have guns and magic and stuff!”

That day, Onni lectured her in tears, his voice reaching decibels previously unknown in Keuruu.

(And she learned that if she lets it slide off her, lets the guilt fold itself away, she won’t cry like he does.)

==

Onni’s boss levels with him on the first month of his employment. “I’m not paying you enough.”

He stares. “What?”

“Listen, I know you’re supporting two kids. But you’re not getting enough from me to keep them in rye bread, let alone anything else. You need to let them get fostered out.”

Something flinty and icy gets stuck in his chest. “No.”

“Come on, Hotakainen, it’s not like that.” His boss looks frustrated. “The base is tiny, you’ll still see them. It’ll be better for them anyway, having regular meals and a guardian who’s actually of _age._ ”

Onni stands. He’s been told he’s stocky enough to mistake for adult. “I’m eighteen. I’ve been of age for months.”

(It’s a lie. He’s sixteen and just barely, and he’d swear Kuutar was nothing but a rock before he’d admit it.)

For a heart stopping minute, he’s afraid he’s been caught out.

Instead, she waves at him wearily. “Oh, sit down, you know what I mean. Someone who’s at least had experience with children before.”

“I don’t see how I’m any different from a first time parent, ma’am.” Onni says.

“Hmph.” She looks him up and down. “You know, I was meant to convince you to give them up.”

All the breath leaves his body.

“But that’s failed, obviously. Your runos will be all the more powerful if you’re this protective of them. Use that to protect the rest of us.”

==

Tuuri finds herself next to Taavi when she lines up for dinner. She bumps his elbow by mistake and smiles up at him, the kind that doesn’t reach her eyes. He touches his nose, which never quite healed straight.

“Hey, Taavi. How’s the new skald apprentice?” she reaches for the potatoes. Taavi actually gets out of her way.

“Hi. Tuuri. Fine, I guess.”

“That’s good! She’s apparently a little homesick.” she scoops out a generous portion. “It’s too bad!”

She takes her tray to the table with her friends, who all start talking about Taavi – wasn’t he handsome, with that fine black hair, those blue eyes. They very carefully don’t include Tuuri in this. No one thought a little girl could hit someone so hard that the sickening crack could be heard across the room.

“I think he’s okay,” she says when asked. She glances over at him. He flinches.

==

Lalli yawns. His first shift as a night scout is just training. He walks straight into the forest before his teacher can grab him by the scruff of his hood. He _mrrrs_ at him.

The man makes a tutting noise. “You can’t go into the Silent World without protection. You don’t know what’s out there.”

Without much effort, Lalli slips out of his grip. Lets his eyes burn blue and bright, is satisfied when the man flinches. “I know.”

==

Tuuri’s last big fight with her brother is also, coincidentally, her last day of middle school. Her teacher mentioned her going to an Icelandic high school, care of a scholarship; she’s bright enough. It’s all she’s ever wanted, and she makes the mistake of telling Onni that. It turns from celebrating her achievement to an all-out row. She’s thirteen and she knows everything, and Onni’s seventeen and he’s driving her insane.

“I’m _sick_ of being scared!” she yells. “You can’t tell me what to do!”

“That’s the world we live in!” he shouts, his voice thick with sadness. “It’s big and full of things that want to kill you! We’re not _immune_ , Tuuri, nothing turns out for the best! Travelling to Iceland means going through the deadliest parts of Finland. If giants came that day do you think that anything will hold them back? Do you think we wouldn’t die, like everyone else did?”

She feels the tears prick at her eyes, and if anything, it makes her angrier. She doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want his fear. “At least I’d get to _do_ something before I died!” she retorts. “What have _you_ done?”

She doesn’t regret it at the time, but she does later. He takes her books away, and grounds her for a full month. She’s not allowed to do anything but schoolwork, and not allowed to go anywhere but school. That’s the punishment, as it’s meant to be. In reality, it extends to three, because he adds a week each time he finds her smuggling books or she’s not home on time. It drives her underground. The last two weeks of those terrible three months, she learns that you can pry up the floorboards, and Lalli can be bought with cookies.

He never lets her go on the scholarship. She apologizes once, for what she’s said, long after they’ve returned from the Silent World. Onni looks amazed when she does. He says he always thought he should have apologized.

==

Onni is at his wit’s end. He walks into an empty apartment and practically hurls all his stuff onto the couch. Then he makes to go straight back out again, snow not even melted on his shoulders, when the room erupts into noise and light.

“Happy birthday, Onni!” gets lost in the fear. He gulps shallowly, his hands glowing with terrible light. It takes every ounce of willpower not to send a runo at his coworker, the nice one, Paju, the girl with the curly hair. She falters, but his father – no, that’s that man who is in his division, the dark-skinned one, Hamid – he clings to this world, there’s Paju, there’s Hamid, there’s his cousin and his little sister, staring at him like he’s grown a third head. Hamid very gently touches his shoulder and guides him to the couch, makes him sit. Someone gives him a cup of tea.

“Still a little jumpy, huh?” he says. Onni can see the banner now; it’s his twenty-third birthday. Twenty-five is what’s written.

“Yeah.” he manages. Tuuri doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself. It’s her handwriting. He hates that he feels like he’ll rattle out of his skin.

“Why don’t we eat dinner now?” Hamid says. It’s directed at him. He’s asking if he’s okay.

Onni takes a deep, shaky breath. “Yeah. Yes. I’m. I apologize. I forgot it was my birthday.”

Lalli grunts. Tuuri closes her eyes and lets out a breath, before brightening. “Of course! We made all your favorites, come sit in the living room.”

Onni sits. Everything still feels unreal. But it’s better. It’s better with the lights on and no sudden noises and Tuuri and Lalli there, unused to each other now since their schedules and now residences are elsewhere. Tuuri tucks a birthday hat onto him in a ghost of a memory. Onni almost smiles at that.

==

Lalli moves out when he’s got a few months of night scouting under his belt. “It’s easier” is how he explains it to his cousins, and it is. He’s on night shifts, and they need daylight. They keep waking each other up, and mealtimes are a disaster.

What he doesn’t say is that he just. He needs solitude more and more now. He’d sleep right on the dirt if it was comfortable enough; he needs to be out in the wild or he’ll go mad. On bad days, when people make less sense than usual and he can’t control how his face looks, he thinks he already has.

It’s better when he’s scouting. The Silent World is boring, sure, but magic feels less square here. Less cobblestone-shaped, like when you pressed your leg down on gravel and it left red indents. Lalli can breathe easier out in the cold, the wide-open spaces. The small spaces too, where trees cluster and he has to squeeze his way past boughs and avoid snow-wells.

He’s solitary even among the scouts, who are solitary by nature. (And he is always solitary in nature). It’s good for him. He takes his grandmother’s rifle always. He sometimes drops by Onni’s dreamworld to converse, and more rarely, Tuuri’s, just to feel sunshine in winter months. And he has a bookmark she gave him anyway, in a burst of literary optimism. He keeps it tucked in his sack.

Sometimes he eats dinner with them. Sometimes he doesn’t. The structure of his days are well-ordered and he doesn’t deviate save location. It’s comfortable, if not the most interesting thing in the world. He’s done with interesting. He’ll spend the rest of his days in quiet competency.

==

Tuuri is hungry.

It’s not the regular kind. She kind of wants to scratch out of her skin and become a new person, like the lizards she read about in books. She shakes her head at herself as she slides from under a truck chassis, flashing a thumbs-up at Sisu.

“All done here!” she says brightly.

“Yesssss come to papa.” He just falls across the dashboard, like he’s hugging the thing. Weird, but not the weirdest thing she’s seen in the engine room. She wipes her hands with a cloth when she swings around to the front. “Mr. Zhang?”

“Yes, Tuuri?” Mr. Zhang pauses his account books. He’s pretty old, but he’s still got sharp eyes.

“I was wondering if I could do more hours.” she says.

Mr. Zhang guffaws. “Oh girl. You already come around far too often. Have they fired you at that fancy skald job of yours?”

“What! No, no of course not.” Tuuri runs a hand through her hair. “No. I’m just, a little restless is all. I kind of need a new project.”

“Hmmm.” He peers at her. “I always do need more help, but I don’t know if I can afford you.”

Tuuri leans on the counter. “You know, I heard that Eliisa’s wife is having a baby soon, and you know how she is.”

Mr. Zhang winces. Eliisa had once rigged the entire place out in hearts on their anniversary. She’d be insensible. “Perhaps. In the meanwhile,” he says, digging around in the stack of papers next to him, “I forgot, but you got a letter from a Taru Hollola?”

“Hummmmm.” Tuuri frowned. “Hollola? That’s familiar.”

“You can come in tomorrow if you’d like.” He says as he hands it over, which neatly occupies Tuuri’s attention. “Anytime in the morning.”

Tuuri eee’s in excitement. “Thank you!!!!!” she squeaks, and takes off to the lockers to change out of her engineer equipment. On the way, she keeps tapping the letter.

 


End file.
